Karajan, the Bringer of Satisfaction

The British composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) is now well known and in his lifetime he was often alone and considered purely in his orchestral suite "The Planets". In this seven-part cycle he is concerned with the planet - except the Earth - our solar system and assigns them to mythical properties. Throughout his life, Holst protested against the fact that his orchestral suite for profane accompaniment of films would be used - without success. We also present listeners should probably associate as the very first "Star Wars" and entourage with Gustav Holst and his "Planets".

The suite opens with the aggressive, march-like Mars, the Holst characterized as "the Bringer of War". Painful intensive demands of the composer the handset so early within the plant.
Calm contrast donates gentle Venus, "the Bringer of Peace". Here Holst celebrates with the handset a delicate, enchanting dances of different melodies, and he uses the great orchestra here at times almost like chamber music, to set some accents by means of the majority 'of the orchestra in the next moment.
Flink noisy "The Winged Messenger" Merkur. Now comes the most famous part of the piece: "Jupiter, the Bringer of jollity". The exuberant joy of this sentence leads twice in a majestic, noble section that captivates and the listener's hair stand on end.
The rest of the work center is the fifth part, in which the British composer Saturn imagined as "the Bringer of Old Age". This is followed by the portion having the highest degree of complexity: "Uranus, the Magician". Fast, thematically difficult passages alternate with slow, simple sequences.
Finally sets Holst represent his ideas from mystical Neptune. After a moderately slow introduction followed by a mysterious, towards the end versiegendes Allegretto. The composer uses a wordless chorus here, the sirens will sound the same in the background.

Herbert von Karajan was a master in the performance of late romantic orchestral works. His recordings of the symphonies of Mahler or symphonic poems of Strauss put comprehensive testimony about it. In fact, this recording from 1981 with the Berlin Philharmonic and the RIAS Chamber Choir is a discounted graphical delight - and not just because of the excellent recording quality.
Karajan's baton is colorful and always differentiated. He is accurate accents and thus generates sufficient contrast to obtain the internal stress of the music erect. The brilliant aufspielenden Berlin put the excellent care, music always transparent and offer each part of the suite with the same precision and playfulness is.

Conclusion: Admittedly, there are not too many recordings of "Planets". Nevertheless, the present that my knowledge is best because most intriguing and compelling.